A MODERN-day Fagin is bringing teams of professional pickpockets into Australia on stealing holidays, reaping thousands of dollars from their crimes and then sending them back home to avoid police detection

The organised crime figure uses tourist visas to bring the thieves “on tour” from South American countries including Colombia and Brazil to prey on unsuspecting shoppers.

Police said they had intelligence about the scam but the Fagin-type figure, nicknamed after the fictional character in Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist who trained boys as pickpockets, “is very hard to catch”.

The Australian Federal Police said it was aware of a number of instances of this type of crime in Australia and it was working with the Identity Security Strike Team to end the practice.